Pterygota alata (Roxb.) R. Br. 

ആനത്തൊണ്ടി

Family : Sterculiaceae

Synonym : Sterculia heynei Bedd.

Common Names : Anathondi, Kavalam, Kudatthanni, Pothondi, Buddha's coconut tree

Flowering Period : April - May

Distribution : South Asia and Myanmar

Habitat : Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests

Uses : The seed is used as a substitute for opium. An oil obtained from the seed is nutritious. The white wood is light in weight, soft with little durability. A low quality timber, it can be used for making boxes and toys.

Key Characters :

Deciduous trees, to 35 m high, bole straight, buttressed; bark, greyish with light and dark patches, smooth. Leaves simple, alternate clustered towards the end of branches, ovate or orbicular, apex caudate-acuminate or acuminate, base cordate, subcordate or truncate, margin entire, glabrous. Flowers unisexual or polygamous, to 2 cm long, brownish, in rusty brown tomentose panicles from leafless nodes. Calyx 5-partite, curved out, tomentose outside. Male flowers: staminal column cylindric bearing 4-5 phalanges of about 5 anthers each. Female flowers: staminodes round the base of the ovary; carpels 5, free, superior, ovules many in each; style short, recurved; stigma 2-lobed. Fruit of 3-5 follicles, obovoid oblique; seeds oblong, brown winged.